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Sojourner in Islamic Lands takes us on a journey from Kazakhstan in the far north of Central Asia, across the mountains to the former Soviet Union, then south to Iran just below the Caspian Sea. Russell Fraser follows the ancient Silk Road wherever possible. For centuries the Silk Road was the primary commercial link between Europe and Asia, with much of it over desert sands and accessible only by camel. Building on history and personal experience, Fraser’s narrative describes this vast territory with an eye to geography, artistic culture, and religion over more than two thousand years. The book that he gives us depends first of all on travel, but the author’s eye is on an interior landscape, and he focuses on the influence of religious ideology on the cultural landscape of Central Asia. Delving deeply into art and architecture, he takes them to be Islam’s most significant creative expressions. Although Islam is currently the predominant religion in the region, the book also examines the two other belief systems with modern-day followers—Christianity and an antireligious sect Fraser calls secular progressivism. His aim is to present Islam to Western readers by describing its achievements during the High Middle Ages and comparing and contrasting them with those of modern Islam. The book offers insights into the history of a major world religion through the eyes of a well-known literary scholar on a journey through exotic parts of the world. He steeps us in the latter, inviting the reader to share the journey with him and participate in the sensations it gives rise to.

\"I went into rehearsals expecting to have to use the typical R.P. British accent but I guess they wanted to steer clear from the direction the musical is in which uses R.P. for the upper class and the students and a Cockney accent for the lower class, peasants and beggars,\" he said. \"There is a bit of dialogue but it's mainly sung through.\" [Fra Fee] admitted that sharing the camera with the likes of X-Men star [Hugh Jackman] and Gladiator action man [Russell Crowe] was daunting at first. \"Initially sharing a scene with Gladiator was quite funny but then within minutes you are working together and enjoying it and making it a collaborative effort to get the best results,\" Fra said. Has Fra found that acting in the movies is much more lucrative than treading the boards? \"Yes,\" he laughs. \"It paid for a nice little holiday.

[Fra Angelico] is known to have been influenced by Masaccio and [Lorenzo Monaco]. [Francis Russell] noted that the picture contains features that echo both painters, as well as aspects that only Fra Angelico used. For example, the figure of Christ is seen from the front and is rendered with long, slender arms, with the thumbs hanging across the palms. This arrangement is found in three of Lorenzo's crucifixions in churches in Italy. Christ's loincloth is folded in exactly the same way as in a Lorenzo painting in the Art Institute of Chicago. The clincher for Russell was the angle of Christ's head, lolling to one side, rather than forward and down. This is a composition Fra Angelico was to repeat later in many other undisputed paintings.

To those who cannot have enough of Florence, I recommend \"Fra Bartolommeo: Master Draughtsman of the High Renaissance\" at the Pierpont Morgan Library (through Nov. 29). Though grouped around more than 100 drawings by Fra Bartolommeo (1472-1517), these exhibitions touch at the highest level on life as it was lived in his time. Gabburri was many things -- musician, poet, linguist, diplomat and aspiring art historian -- but above all he was a collector. Two great French connoisseurs, Pierre-Jean Mariette and Pierre Crozat, went to see him in Florence. (Crozat was so impressed that his mouth was seen to water. Mariette's last word was that Gabburri's drawings were \"more numerous than beautiful.\") Study for the face of an angel, by Fra Bartolommeo -- A vein of tenderness. (Boymans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam)(pg. 29); \"Portrait Study of Michelangelo\" by Fra Bartolommeo -- Both helped and handicapped by a friendship. (Boymans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam)(pg. 36)